Larry Levy and Tom Rosen have been known to debate which game to play from time to time. Larry wants to play this; Tom wants to play that. It’s a recurring theme on game days as they each try to persuade their peers to play the game they think is best. All this debating can only mean one thing — it’s time for another Opposing Opinions column. In the past, Tom and Larry have debated expansion fever, cooperative plague, and Wallace delirium, but this time they’ll be pitting game against game in a multi-round grudge match.

Masquerade

Tom: Java is hands down the best game in the Mask Trilogy. I don’t care if Tikal won the Spiel des Jahres, has a higher average rating on BoardGameGeek, and has thousands upon thousands more owners. The design of Tikal (and Torres) in 1999 was just a warm-up for Kramer and Kiesling as they geared up for their real masterpiece, Java in 2000.

I’m not going to argue that Tikal isn’t good; it’s very good. And yet it pales in comparison to the beauty, the depth, and the enduring nature of Java. Just look atthat game! It’s drop-dead gorgeous and has the enthralling gameplay to back it up.

The debate about the relative merits of Java and Tikal comes down to one of our fundamental differences — I prefer open-ended games with sprawling decision trees, whereas Larry prefers narrow and confined games with more limited options. Java gives you that wonderfully wide open feeling of having a million different things you can do. You’re not forced to pick from a menu of doing A, B, or C like in so many games. The way in which the board develops at the beginning of Java is so free form that it’s daunting to many players who are used to being guided and corralled by games. But it’s liberating to have that much flexibility in a game and makes for an incredibly replayable experience. While this leads many to criticize the game for analysis-paralysis, it simply leads me to select my opponents more carefully. As long as you’re playing with people who think during other players’ turns and don’t need to calculate every single available move, this game will move at a reasonable pace and, more importantly, be worth the time invested. Wouldn’t you rather play a meaningful longer game than several forgettable shorter games?

Tikal is not as confining as many German-style games, but the board still tends to develop in similar ways, and unless you play with the prolonging auction variant, the random draw of the volcano tiles plays an immense role. It’s also just hard to get excited about the incremental gains of swapping treasure tiles with opponents or building your temple up one more level. Java can be a quiet and pensive experience, but it’s also got plenty of excitement as sprawling cities are chopped up and reconfigured in surprising ways. In the end, Java is the one with the looks, the depth, and the replayability that will make it a classic for many years long after Tikal has fallen by the wayside.

Larry: Tom is right when he says that our Tikal/Java split truly illustrates our divide over focused vs. wide open games. But that’s all he’s right about. Tikal is a brilliant design, the only game ever to win the SdJ, DSP, and IGA awards. It originated the idea of Action Points and implements it wonderfully. The “stones” hexside movement mechanic is a terrific idea, where the players essentially set the geography of the countryside each game. And if you’re looking for dynamic play with the potential for bold moves, just see how dramatically the game can change when you establish one of your additional base camps on the perfect hex.

I think my favorite thing about Tikal is how wonderfully themed it is. Every action is closely tied to its real-world counterpart. This really adds to the appeal of the game. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the most beautiful games I own.

Java is just as attractive and is a fine game in its own right, but it can’t hold a candle to its older brother. As Tom says, the board is a blank canvas. That’s fine if you’re Picasso or have a few dozen games under your belt, but for the rest of us, it’s bewildering, to say the least. So rather than analyze your position, you just latch onto a line of play that looks decent and hope it doesn’t cost you the game. That’s not nearly as much fun, or as skillful, as quickly sizing up the Tikal board and making what might be your best play. It’s not like your options in Tikal are limited–far from it. But the first lesson of modern boardgaming is that the skill level rises when your options are restricted just a little bit. Tikal gets that balance down perfectly.

Java also isn’t nearly as true to its theme as Tikal is, so it loses points there. And the Analysis Paralysis that Tom so casually mentions can be a huge issue. In addition, Tikal works with lots of different kinds of gamers, thanks to the two methods of play (I prefer the auction variant, which adds very little extra time with experienced players, but the standard “pick a tile” method is great as well). Tikal has the awards, it has the ratings, and it has the superior gameplay. It’s a modern classic and time has already shown that it (not its little brother) is the game from the Mask Trilogy that will be long remembered.

Ron-delights

Larry: Well, that was fun, but Action Points are so twentieth century. Let’s move closer to the present day and compare a couple of games that also share a common mechanism, namely Mac Gerdts’ wonderful rondel.

I wish I could trash Imperial, but I can’t, ‘cause it’s really a very good design. In fact, I’ve played some amazing games of it. The trouble is, I’ve also played some games of it that were kind of flat and some which were downright frustrating for a few of the players. It’s a little bit fragile, as is sometimes the case with games with so much player interaction. The situation is somewhat worse for Imperial, because it can be really hard to recover from a poor start.

Fortunately, there is another rondel game that doesn’t suffer from this problem. Navegador is not only a wonderfully designed game, but it’s one of the most reliably enjoyable ones I play. The various mechanisms fit together like clockwork and the game moves along at a crackling pace, because all of the turns are so short and basic. Navegador also has a very strong fidelity to its theme, something Gerdts is known for. The rondel works better than ever and instead of the players being deprived of actions they’d rather do (which is often the case in other rondel games, including Imperial), in Navegador the players have to choose between several attractive options. Of course, you’re able to do them all, but then your slow pace means you’ll be limiting your chances of acquiring the privileges that yield most of the VPs. It gives the game a more positive feel and doesn’t make the choices any less difficult or the skill level any lower.

Gerdts has designed a number of successful games, but Navegador is his masterpiece. It’s smooth gameplay is a highlight, but it’s also a very deep game, with many paths to victory. The market mechanism, with the colonies and factories working at cross purposes, is very clever and, like the rest of the game, is implemented effortlessly and elegantly. It’s one of my favorite games of the past several years and one I’m always ready to play. Best of all, I’m just about certain that the experience will be great, which is more than I can say for the occasionally brilliant, but far less reliable Imperial.

Tom: Yes, Imperial is fragile, but Navegador is dull, which is a much greater sin in my book. You’re right that Imperial doesn’t run perfectly every time and can have a clear leader before it’s over, but when it does come together, it truly shines as one of the best board games ever made. These are honestly difficult games to compare because they share so little in common when it comes to the feel of the game, in contrast to their identical underlying rondel mechanism. Imperial feels tense, thrilling, exciting, and memorable. Navegador, on the other hand, feels familiar, dry, derivative, and forgettable.

The central genius of Imperial is in melding a traditional European great powers game like Diplomacy with an investment element and the brilliant stroke of genius which is control of countries changing hands throughout the game. It’s not a war game, it’s not a stock market game, it is its own thing and brilliant in its uniqueness. You get to speculate by purchasing bonds that you work to increase in value, you get to march armies and sail fleets around a map conquering your foes, and it all fits within a couple hours.

The rondel is a means, not an end. Sure rondels can provide interesting and difficult decisions, but the rondel does not make the game. Other mechanisms could easily be used to constrain player choices instead. A game cannot survive on the strength of its rondel alone. This is the same issue with many deck building games, which fail to create an actual game around the deck building mechanism. Navegador includes a game around the rondel mechanism, but a familiar and dry one of acquiring resources and converting them into victory points. We’ve all been there and done that. Sure, now we can do it with the rondel limiting our choices as opposed to the provost or what have you, but there’s nothing really new here. You mean Navegador is a game where I can finally build factories and shipyards and churches, and I can use my workers to acquire buildings and privileges in various athematic categories. How wonderfully pedestrian. I’ve played it a couple times and remember nothing about the games themselves.

Imperial sticks with you. You’ll not soon forget the time you left the southern flank of Russia open because you solidly controlled Austria and had marched its armies west, only to have it bought out from under you and all your Russian factories quickly occupied by a hostile force that you controlled only moments before. Or the time your opponent bought up the incredibly inexpensive and worthless German forces merely to use them as a tool to tip the balance in the ongoing Anglo-Franco war. Or the time you held a minority share in several successful countries and pulled out a surprising win as a total dark horse. Imperial is a special game in that, unlike so many countless games, it lives on after it has been packed up and put away. It’s a game that really gets you interacting and conversing with your opponents in a way that so few German games do. I’m not talking about the kind of interaction where you block someone from buying stone for 6 money so now they have to pay an extra dollar. I’m talking about the kind of interaction where there’s a real chance for empires to rise and fall.

Uwe’s Twins (or are they?)

Tom: Unlike the last pair which actually shared very little in common, this next pair are nearly identical twins. As a result, you might wonder why Larry and I would disagree about them at all, but it turns out this is one of our most vociferous gaming disagreements.

Uwe Rosenberg is an incredible game designer. He released a thousand and one Bohnanza expansions and spin-offs, and then one day shocked the world with Agricola. Since that fateful Essen in 2007, he’s been on quite a tear, releasing widely praised heavy, big box games in rapid succession. The pinnacle though for me came with Le Havre in 2008, which combined the tense and challenging decision-making of Agricola with a more wide open feel like I praised in Java above. I’ve enjoyed Le Havre over 20 times and it has really stood the test for five years.

Le Havre is excellent because it perfects that German game feeling of being pulled in a hundred different directions and never having enough time or actions to do everything you want to do. There are countless things to do and I always want to do at least three or four on any given turn. Thankfully, there are also plenty of ways in which you can block your opponents or grab limited opportunities before they do. As a result, while it’s got plenty of traditional resource conversion and victory point generation, it’s also very interactive as you not only have to figure out your own priorities, but also figure out and obstruct your opponents’ priorities.

Ora et Labora is remarkably similar, so similar in fact that there’s really no reason to bother with it. In both games, each turn you choose between gathering a handful of resource chits of one type, or building a building with those resources, or using a building to convert some resources into some other resources. Whether you’re playing Le Havre or Ora, if you do the first option then you get a number of resources based on how many turns it has been since someone last took that resource type. If you do the second option, the building will be worth a good number of points at the end, but anyone can use it during the game for a small fee. If you do the third option, then you will flip some of your resource chits over or exchange them for others which are more valuable and can be used to generate more points.

The underlying structure of each game is essentially identical. It’s basically like playing a different map for Age of Steam or Ticket to Ride. The problem is that they have different resource conversion paths. The reason I’m not enthusiastic about playing Ora is having to relearn a whole new set of buildings and the related resource conversion chains, when I might as well continue enjoying Le Havre. I bet Larry is going to tell you that Ora is a perfected version of Le Havre and that Le Havre is now obsolete. Don’t listen to that line of reasoning. Ora is just like a new Power Grid map for Le Havre, but instead of a fun twist, it just makes you do all the heavy lifting of tracing out building and resource connections all over again. Save yourself the trouble and ignore the New Coke.

Larry: The discussions over the first two pairs of games in this article basically come down to varying playing styles or differing tastes. However, this last comparison is based upon the far more serious matter of mental health. Because anyone who tells you that Le Havre and Ora et Labora are essentially the same game is clearly insane.

I admit, when I first read the rules to Ora, I was concerned that it seemed very similar to Le Havre. However, by the end of the third turn of my first game, I could already see substantial differences. And by the time that first game was over, I was able to conclude that just about all those differences represented improvements over the earlier game.

The biggest improvement is that in Ora, you can actually build an engine. In Le Havre, everyone has the same chance to use your buildings as you do (even more so, since they get first crack at it after you build it), so one of the peculiarities of the game is that you really can’t effectively focus on an ability. In Ora, though, you get first crack at your building if you use your Prior to construct it (and you should do this as often as you can). In addition, there are ways to use your buildings even if they are occupied and it’s considerably easier to force an opponent to leave a building you covet. There is also a subtle penalty for using an opponents’ buildings, as you let him cycle through his workers more quickly, giving him more uses of his valuable Prior. Taken together, players absolutely wind up building an engine in Ora and this, to me, is a significant advantage over Le Havre.

Then there’s the geographic aspect to Ora. In Le Havre, a building is a building and you just plop them down in front of you however you choose. In Ora, though, where you construct your buildings can be vitally important, because of the adjacency bonuses obtained from placing settlements. You also have to worry about expanding your region and this can be done in a variety of ways. This additional element is most welcome and adds greatly to the game’s appeal.

It also feels like there are more paths to victory in Ora. I’m far from an expert in Le Havre, but more often than not, it seems as if focusing on coke and steel is the way to win. At the very least, it’s the 500-pound gorilla that always has to be accounted for. Conversely, Ora has tons of different strategies and I’ve yet to see two winners do things very similarly. I’m more hesitant about this advantage than the others, because strategy isn’t my long suit as a gamer, but it sure feels like Ora has the edge here.

Another issue is the removal of the loan mechanic that is so prominent in Le Havre. This is more of a difference than an advantage, because there’s nothing inherently wrong with the loans in the older game. Still, it always felt weird that you paid the same amount of interest regardless of how many loans you have. It also represents a thematic hit in a game that doesn’t have the strongest theme to begin with. Many Le Havre fans love the loan mechanic, so even though I’m reasonably happy it wasn’t transferred to Ora, I’ll stop short of saying the game is improved by its removal. But there’s no question this represents a considerable difference between the two games.

Finally, there’s the wheel. Rosenberg takes the messy, error-prone method of resource distribution in Le Havre, with its unsightly stacks of overflowing cardboard tiles, and converts it into an elegant, error-free, and fast record keeping system, thanks to the wondrous Production Wheel. It’s rare that I get that excited by the usability of a mechanical device, but the difference in record keeping is so stark between the two games that it has to be mentioned. Once again, advantage: Ora.

Look, Le Havre is a wonderful game and even though I have some issues with it, it’s a design I regard highly (I prefer it to Agricola, for example). But even though it and Ora appear to be identical on the surface, all it takes is a small amount of scratching to find significant differences between the two games. And in just about every case, I prefer the way things are done in Ora. Le Havre is a really good game, but Ora is my favorite game to appear since Through the Ages was released way back in 2006. I’m not in the habit of saying that Game A fired Game B (there’s almost always room for two good games), but given that the two titles are undeniably similar, and given all the ways in which Ora improves on the older game, why should I ever play Le Havre again? I’d only wish I were playing Ora et Labora instead.

* * *

So there you have it. Three gaming duels and our take on each. Java vs. Tikal. Navegador vs. Imperial. Le Havre vs. Ora et Labora. Which three do you prefer?

Excellent article, guys. While I adore Java, it does not hit the table nearly as often as Tikal due to the length of time it takes to play (thanks to the “analysis paralysis” problem mentioned above). I have only played Imperial once, and enjoyed the experience, but just have not had the strong urge to get it back to the table. I have played Navegador several times and, like Tom, it fails to excite me. I prefer Le Havre over Ora et Labora, mainly because I found it tedious to constantly read all of the small text on the array of buildings owned by my opponents. I found this easier to accomplish in Le Havre.

The text on the Ora cards is indeed a bit small. To deal with this, we make it a point to use as small a table as possible when we play and we can play quite smoothly as a result. The irony to me is that I have a similar issue with Le Havre, but the problem there is the board setup, which forces you to arrange the unclaimed cards near the center of the table. As a result, I find it hard to read the costs and effects of the cards while they’re spread in their initial stacks. In both cases, the games are good enough that I’m willing to put up with these inconveniences, but I do wish that Lookout had put a little more thought into the possibility that some of the players might be dealing with aging eyes!

Very entertaining read, guys. Makes me want to play both games of each pair (Tikal’s the only one I’ve played so far!).
I’m interested to know what you both think of Imperial 2000 (or whatever it was called). Did that improve on the game and would you recommend that one over the first version?

It’s called Imperial 2030, Jeff. I’ve only played it once, but I thought all the differences were improvements over the original. However, none of these are essential, so anyone who already owns Imperial shouldn’t feel the need to upgrade; the game they already own is just fine. If you don’t own either, though, then 2030 is probably the better purchase (all other factors being equal).

I suspect Tom has played it more than me, though, so he could give you a more authoritative answer.

> Rosenberg takes the messy, error-prone method of resource distribution in Le Havre, with its unsightly stacks of overflowing cardboard tiles, and converts it into an elegant, error-free, and fast record keeping system, thanks to the wondrous Production Wheel.

It’s a nice idea–brilliant maybe–but doesn’t actually live up to the hype. In fact it seems easier to add a couple resources every turn than to count out a large number of resources when you take them. And it’s easier to make mistakes when taking large numbers. I liked the extreme simplicity of taking resources being your turn. In O&L now you have to use a worker even when doing that. And if you bump the wheel, it’s much worse than bumping the board in LH (at least when using silicon baking cups to hold the goods), meaning that any pile of goods that fell over can simply be put back. But if you knock the marker in O&L, you can’t reconstruct where it was.

But more importantly, in O&L I miss the pacing of Le Havre, the burden of feeding your people every round which creates a rhythm to the game, the multiple ways of doing it, the nuances of loans, of building sequencing, of special buildings, etc. I also really don’t like that there is no random setup in O&L.I strongly dislike pre-constructed opening sequences (yes, even in chess).

1. You’re one of those people who like to include 7 games in Knizia’s Tile Laying Trilogy, aren’t you Ben? What is there about the words “Mask” and “trilogy” that you don’t understand? :-)

Having said that, I’ve played Cavum and thought there were a lot of good ideas there (although the dynamite wasn’t one of them). But the potential for AP makes Tikal, or even Java, seem fast and breezy in comparison. And Cavum is a lot less intuitive than Tikal. I wouldn’t mind exploring it a bit, but it doesn’t come close to approaching the awesomeness of the first Mask game.

2. I’ve never played Princes of Machu Picchu and would love to try it. Do you still own it?

3. Agricola, huh? Finally something Tom and I can agree on: the ‘gric is NOT Rosenberg’s best game!

Yes, But it’s really more of a spectrum of types of players than simply of quality. Tikal is a fun little romp in the jungle, Mexica makes it a little more thinky (surprisingly overlooked as a zero randomness–post setup– game), Java layers on some AP, and Cavum is pure brain melty.

> 2. The Princes of Machu Picchu.

Overly tactical. Poor resource model with some resources virtually interchangeable. Most notable for one of the ugliest boards ever.

> 3. Agricola.

I have a hard time finding a strong reason to pick a winner between ‘gric & LH when it comes to the core game. But all the kitchen sink approach to all the cards tedious: zillions of different card decks which combine in not always great ways, hidden cards that can completely whack someone’s planning, and the tedium of the draft. I’d rather just start playing. I give the edge to LH for its cleanliness. Even though there are a couple decks of special cards, they don’t come out in the beginning, and everyone has an opportunity to see/use them.

Huh, I agree with Larry on all three counts. I’m pretty sure I like Tikal over Java, I’ve had a bad first experience with Imperial so don’t want to play it again, and Navagador is one of my favorite games. Ora and Le Havre are fairly close in my book, but I lean slightly towards Ora primarily due to the feeling of having more control over my own buildings (as Larry mentions…)

I’m with Larry on prefering Ora as well. I really like Le Havre, but I think the spatial element of placing buildings and developing your countryside in Ora adds a great deal. It gives you something to think about in terms of timing what and where you build and when you clear land beyond just the buildings VPs or when you happen to need a particular resource. I also think the the settlement phases are a nice improvement over the feeding phases in LH. The fact that you can choose from a variety of different settlements and have to think about placing them in ways that will let you multiply the values of other buildings makes that part of the game more interesting (at least for me) than simply trying to amass enough fish or bread for turn X.

It’s very strange to me that Larry is supposed to be the one who likes focused games and he prefers Ora to LH. And vice versa for Tom. Ora seems to be much much more open-ended and less focused: double the resource types, two games going on at once (the economic game and the tableau building), settlements which have no production purposes. I love love love all of Rosenberg’s games and tend to prefer Ora because it’s so open. Agricola is the focused one: it’s the most brutal, there’s no time to waste a single move. It’s equal with Ora. As for Le Havre, I love it, but it’s the least challenging of the three.

I understand your point about open/focused games, but the kind of “open” games that Tom and I are talking about are Java and Antics, where you have a blank canvas to work with at the beginning. There’s a lot going on in Ora, but that almost makes it necessary to stake out a strategy and stick to it. I’m not always successful with that, but I can do it enough to be competent and to make the game hugely enjoyable for me. What you’re calling “open”, I would call “multi-faceted”; maybe that’s just a difference in terminology, but I can distinguish between the two.

I’m not sure if Agricola is focused or just deliberately limited, but there’s no question it’s the most brutal of the three. As you say, there’s no time to waste a single move. That’s why I prefer the other two to Agricola; rather than the tension coming from trying to achieve a small number of essential choices, it comes from choosing the best of a larger number of good options. The latter gives me a more positive gaming experience, which I find more enjoyable. But if you find Le Havre “less challenging”, you’re a much better player than me. One of the reasons I found it easier to make the jump from Le Havre to Ora was that I usually struggled with LH, so I had less of an investment to lose than Tom did. I still think Ora is superior in every way, but becoming familiar with its buildings wasn’t much different than relearning the ones in Le Havre, which I usually had to do every time I played it. Even when I knew the LH buildings fairly well, I always found it to be a very tough game to succeed at.

Ahh, I see what you’re saying – thank you very much for the response. The “blank canvas” and the “multi-faceted” remark clicked. You are right – Rosenberg builds strict economies that you have to learn to work inside. They aren’t “open” in the sense of being able to redefine that economy or to alter the interchange of goods. (BTW I really enjoyed this article and am going to closely follow both of you – I think I lean toward Larry’s preferences, but agree with Tom quite a bit as well – I like both sides!)

I’m very surprised to hear that you struggled with LH and then flourished in Ora!! To me, both games really demand that you can navigate the interchange of goods. And LH doesn’t approach Ora at all in this respect – mastering coke and steel in LH simply requires snatching up charcoal and iron. However, getting all the way up to ornaments and wonders in Ora is quite a feat – particularly if you plan on stopping at beer and whiskey on the way. I suspect that you’re more of a settlements player, though?

Anyway, I’m with you – I’ve been completely hooked on the game since about October and I’m fortunate to have two other friends who right there with me.

Well, tom is def my boy, and while i dont feel terribly strongly of allegiance to these 3 sets of games, i’m more in line with Larry’s line of thinking. I’ve only played most of the above once or twice and that kind of enough for me, in most cases i would pref to play something else.

i kind of hate le havre, mostly because so many people really love it, i just dont like or get the blocking mechanic. Rarely do i feel that people are proactively blocking, but simply just stuck with a better option or lack of option on their turn and thus the trickle down effect of the next player who wanted to use X building now can not. For me, that seems to make planning pointless. Where in your typical worker placement game u can mitigate this via turn order and/or by proper predictive planning, ie agricola. I would be more forgiving, if the game didnt take foreverever as well.

I’ve not yet met a rondal game that i’ve enjoyed, even though on paper the mechanic is up my alley.

Lastly Java was much more like work than a game, i’ve not yet tried tikal, but now i’m excited to try it. =D

I like O&L for one of the reasons mentioned; multiple paths to victory. As for the small cards and related issues, I use a laminated play aid and a marker to let me know who has what. I think Le Havre is fine, and enjoy playing. The ‘Grik can take a flying leap.
Java, and it has been awhile, is a better ‘game’, but is less enjoyable for me due to things like not being allowed to “wonk someone upside their head” to get them to move. I’ll take Tikal w/the auction mechanic for tiles.
Imperial I’ve played twice and both times I’ve come away feeling ‘dirty’. Not what I look for in a game. I like Navegator a lot. I have all of the MacGerts games and I think it’s the best.

Navegador is simply a game that doesn’t get played enough in my house. I think it’s Gerdt’s best. And while I was a LeHavre nut for a long time, the fact that it plays best with three and also all the loan shenanigans turned me off after awhile. On the other hand, O&L is still one of my favorite games, love the fact that while the same buildings come out at the same time every game, every game has been really different. Still can’t decide if settlements are too powerful, and that’s after 20 games.

I’m really loving the theme/design of your weblog. Do you ever run into any browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog readers have complained about my site not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any advice to help fix this issue?